Save Thousands With A Flat Fee Real Estate Agent

Buying or selling a home in today's market is a difficult task. A few years ago when the market was great you could put a "for sale" sign in the ground and have your house sold in just a couple of hours. Not anymore...

Nowadays, if you honestly expect to sell your house, it's essential to be listed in your regional MLS. Roughly 90% of all houses sold in the country are listed in MLS. This allows your house to be viewed by the most people seeking a house which includes other real estate professionals and their buyers.

As a seller you have a couple of options to get their home listed in MLS...

One possibility is to use a real estate agent. However, in doing so its possible you have to pay as much as 6% of the sale price in real estate fees. Based on your sale price this might be tens of thousands of dollars.

Another choice, which is becoming a lot more common, is to use a flat fee real estate agency.

If you choose a flat fee real estate service, you only pay a one-time predetermined fee to have your house listed in MLS. Almost all flat fee real estate providers cost anywhere from $299 to $799. This can be a significant savings over the 6% you would be paying to a traditional real estate agent. Bear in mind however, using a flat fee real estate service, although you may get extras such as a "for sale" sign, lock box, and in some cases listing brochures, you won't have anyone doing open houses or any other type of marketing for you. In other words you become a FSBO or "for sale by owner".

The benefit of using a flat fee real estate service is that you can save yourself anywhere from 3% to 6% in real estate fees. You still will have to pay any agent that brings you a buyer (the buyer's agent) their portion, generally 3%, but if you get a buyer on your own you will not need to pay any fee whatsoever.

Consider that... if you are using a flat fee real estate service and sell your house for $250,000 you save anywhere from $7,500 to $15,000 in real estate fees. This is a major saving by anyone's standards.